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G-R awaits dissolution input from surrounding districts

G-R awaits dissolution input from surrounding districts

CONTRIBUTED ARTWORK A second petition for dissolution was served to the G-R school district last October, and the proposed map this time around is identical to the map developed by the first dissolution commission last year. Under the proposed map, the school districts of Dike-New Hartford, Hudson, Green Mountain-Garwin, North Tama County and Grundy Center would divide the current G-R districts’ students, assets and liabilities.

REINBECK — “We’ll have to wait and see.”

Gladbrook-Reinbeck Schools Superintendent David Hill said a second petition to dissolve the district was accepted in October 2016, and now surrounding districts are being asked for input.

“The next step was to send out letters, which did go out to all our contiguous districts in early January,” he said, adding the school board-appointed Dissolution Commission has already met once. “The commission does have it’s next meeting set for early March at which time we hope we have heard back from most districts.”

The Dissolution Commission remains virtually unchanged since last year’s dissolution planning process, with only one change. Rod Brockett, now a school board member, was replaced on the commission by Christine Farley to ensure only three board members sit on the commission.

The school districts of Hudson, North Tama County, South Tama County, Grundy Center, Dike-New Hartford, Green Mountain-Garwin and Beaman-Conrad-Liscomb-Union-Whitten were sent letters about potential interest in talking with the commission about the district’s dissolution, Hill said.

“Most of those districts are likely to respond that their opinion hasn’t changed, that they’re still OK with the division of assets and liabilities and students that was proposed the first time around,” Hill said of the letters sent.

Hill added he cannot predict what surrounding districts’ responses to the letters will be, and some may have a changed perspective from last year’s potential dissolution process.

The new petition for dissolution was served to the G-R school district on Oct. 25, 2016, and includes 642 signatures from registered voters within the district, passing the 20 percent voting population threshold needed for the process to take place.

“What was proposed in the petition was identical to the map … that the first commission came up with,” Hill said. “The commission can choose to go with that map or can choose to go a different direction based on input from the neighboring districts and based on the public hearings that they will hold.”

That map would see the current G-R district divided among D-NH to the north, Hudson to the northeast, North Tama to the east, GMG to the southwest and Grundy Center to the west.

“In the end, I can’t predict, but I’d say because it’s a fairly recent process, there’s a good chance that [the proposed map] would not change,” Hill said.

The Dissolution Commission’s second meeting is set for early March, he added, and all meetings of the commission are open to the public. The second meeting will not, however, be a public hearing.

“The purpose is to share the input that [the commission] receives from all the surrounding districts and then determine next steps based on that,” Hill said. “The task of this commission is to come up with a dissolution proposal… and how the district would be divided in the event of a successful dissolution vote.”

Once the commission submits their dissolution proposal to the school board, Hill said the board can take the proposal as submitted or can modify it before sending it along to the county auditor for a vote.

In the petition, reasons cited in favor of dissolution included the distance between the district’s two major population centers of Gladbrook and Reinbeck. Community members in Gladbrook, it reads, has a stronger involvement with the Marshalltown area, and the Reinbeck community a stronger involvement with the Cedar Valley area.

Additionally, a high rate of open enrollment of Gladbrook-area students to the neighboring GMG school district was cited as a reason for dissolution. The petition reads that those open enrollments out of the G-R district have to do with the closing of the district’s elementary school in Gladbrook in February 2015.

Hill said an appeal against the G-R School Board’s decision to reject the first dissolution petition has been dropped and will not be appealed.

Even with a clear possibility of dissolution, Hill said students at G-R are having a productive school year. “We’re continuing to move forward as a school district and we are having a great school year,” he said.

The Dissolution Commission is set to meet 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 8 in the second floor meeting room at the G-R Jr./Sr. High School, 600 Blackhawk St., Reinbeck.

For more information on the district, go to www.gladbrook-reinbeck.k12.ia.us and for more on the dissolution process, go to the superintendent’s blog at https://rebelsupt.blogspot.com/2017/01/gladbrook-reinbeck-dissolution-update.html

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